Though I am a Novel Patient, patience isn’t my strong suit. But patience is what is required of me right now.

My kidney infection has triggered a flare of my Autoimmune Pancreatitis. I’ve completely lost my appetite and am having severe upper abdominal pain that bores through to my back. Luckily I am at the hospital with all my specialists including my Pancreatic specialist. In terms of treatment, my doctors are really afraid to give me more Prednisone (a steroid) while I am still fighting this infection. Plus they don’t want to undo my progress in tapering the Prednisone. So the treatment is to keep me completely off anything by mouth – no food or even water – for several days until this hopefully calms itself down again.

So they are keeping me here through the weekend, and I get to practice being patient.

I am plain tired of it all though. I am tired of being in the hospital so often that it becomes so commonplace to my family that they hardly bat an eye. I am tired of having IVs and PICC lines hanging out of my arm and being covered with bruises from botched attempts at them. I am tired of being woken up in the middle of the night to get my vitals checked. I’m tired of all the medications and the side effects. (A new fun one from the IV antibiotic is blurred vision.) I’m tired of being bored and lonely and alone in the hospital. I am tired of being so tired.

I wrote a poem just now:

In The Hospital

In the hospital
Knowing only pain
And loneliness
Poked and prodded
Woken in the night
Woken in to a nightmare
But this is no nightmare
This is my life
So I search
For a beacon of hope
For a way to get through
And make this trial a tool
To grow and evolve
Past the loneliness
And past the pain
Poking and prodding
My soul into change
Though I dream
And I hope
For health
I cannot wait
So one day at a time
In the hospital

On the upside, I get to take a shower tomorrow. A REAL shower!!! I can’t explain how much I’m looking forward to that!

Also my church has been amazing! They’ve been calling and texting and most importantly visiting me. It’s been awesome to have such a source of support for the first time in my life! Their visits have broken up the monotony and made it so much easier to be patient.

“Patience in the Hospital”

I am blessed that recently I have found myself on the light side of the hospital bed. So I will send my spirit to be with you at your bedside. Together as sister’s in pain. Each understanding the agony of the other. I will lend you resolve and determination to help you get through the rough spots.

My name is Lauren, and I’m a 26 year old with an unusual collection of autoimmune diseases that includes arthritis, Autoimmune Pancreatitis, Autoimmune Hepatitis, Fibromyalgia, and Sjogren’s Syndrome with neurological involvement. I write about my struggles dealing with sometimes dangerous new treatments, balancing relationships with family and friends, my difficulty adapting to life in a wheelchair due to debilitating arthritis, and most importantly my quest to maintain hope and faith in myself through it all. I am also an avid scrapbooker, alternative reality gamer, and an aspiring novelist writing my first book – a coming of age story set in a dystopian future.